For me, Telltale kinda died around Walking Dead because that's when all the projects I was interested in were forgotten. But I still have a lot of fondness for the company for the games they made beforehand and how cool the old crew was (Will and Jake and such)

I think TTG showed its death throes from BTTF, through JP and into the forumcommunity software switch.

That the powers-that-be were grossly dumbing down gameplay, shrugging off fixing major bugs, and not considering even forum moderators opinions about the forum layout, should be indicators that the company's internal culture was not sustainably healthy.

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I think TTG showed its death throes from BTTF, through JP and into the forumcommunity software switch.

That the powers-that-be were grossly dumbing down gameplay, shrugging off fixing major bugs, and not considering even forum moderators opinions about the forum layout, should be indicators that the company's internal culture was not sustainably healthy.

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I'm not gonna act like I'm not sad at Telltale's closure. Frankly I was a fan the whole time, even if I didn't really get the chance to play most of their games anymore.

I've tried migrating here a couple of times like the rest of you, but honestly something just didn't feel right. I dunno, might have been how much my anxiety was ramping up at the time. Doesn't really matter anymore. I miss the old community.

The complaint, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, is a class-action lawsuit submitted by Vernie Roberts on behalf of himself and his fellow laid-off workers. In the complaint, Roberts says Telltale — which is based in the San Francisco suburb of San Rafael, California — let go of the employees “without cause” and without providing them with “advance written notice as required by the WARN Act.”

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which became law in 1988, stipulates that most businesses with at least 100 full-time workers must notify employees 60 days in advance of any plant closings or mass layoffs. The act defines a “mass layoff” as a reduction of 50 or more employees within a 30-day period (if the total comprises at least one-third of the company’s workforce), or any layoff of 500 or more workers. California’s state-level version of the WARN Act, which took effect in 2003, has more stringent requirements for businesses: It lowers the company-size threshold to 75 full- or part-time workers, and applies to any reduction of at least 50 employees. (Both the state and federal laws require advance notice of 60 days.)

Roberts’ complaint says the total layoffs at Telltale amount to approximately 275 employees. The figure appears to include the layoffs that occurred Sept. 21, which media reports pegged at about 250 individuals, as well as the skeleton crew of 25 that remains at the studio as it winds down operations. Telltale terminated the employees without providing any severance, according to the complaint. The laid-off individuals are reportedly receiving health benefits only until the end of the month.

Under the WARN Act, businesses that undertake plant closings or mass layoffs with fewer than 60 days’ advance notice are subject to significant financial penalties. Rather than pay fines, a company must give affected employees back pay and benefits for each day of violation. Roberts’ complaint says Telltale gave no advance notice of the cuts, which would mean that Telltale would have to give each of the 275 employees salary and benefits for a full 60 days following their termination, if the plaintiffs win the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial, and are seeking to win the aforementioned compensation for the laid-off employees: an amount equal to the wages and benefits that the workers would have received if their employment continued for 60 days after their termination, plus interest, in accordance with the federal and California versions of the WARN Act.

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Good for them. Yeah, that mass firing was exceedingly terrible on all fronts. I hope they win, even if it means the remainder of Telltale collapses. The added bit about losing health benefits in two weeks is the worst bit. Especially because ACA sign up window hasn't even started yet. That's the sort of thing that can instantly bankrupt even a person who's been diligent with their finances.

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But seriously, though. I do feel bad for all those employees out of a job. I hope that lawsuit goes somewhere beneficial for them.

I'm pleased about what happened to the company itself. It's justice in many ways for me personally.

On 9/27/2018 at 7:40 PM, nmalinoski said:

If you bought your games from TTG directly, you may run into problems in the future if they shut off their account authorization server.

I don't know about your TTG games, but none of mine require account authorization anymore and haven't for a while. I'm pretty sure they changed that a while back, which is why I redownloaded some of them then. I've redownloaded them all now.

Question: Do the GOG or Steam versions of Tales of Monkey Island have Harrington's LeChuck voices in 101 still? Because if not, the Telltale version is the only one that does. Unless the Earl Boen version was exclusive to the physical DVD that you could order from their store once upon a time.

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I downloaded all the Sam and Max games and none of them asked for authorization. In fact the "play immediately" option was already selected after I downloaded them, so the real trial was needing to remember to turn it off before completing the download or I'd have to sit through the intro and then quit out of the game to download the next one.

I met @puzzlebox, @kenjisalk, and @JobJStauffer_TTG at a press screening of Minecraft: Story Mode, and got to hang out with them in the room above the event, talk to them about what I read on the forums that people wanted, and just talk about Minecraft, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, Sam & Max, Puzzle Agent, and just about anything else that popped in my head about my nerdy knowledge of Telltale. I think I even brought up Telltale Texas Hold'em Blades of Stenchtar at one point. They even let me take home the rest of the pizza (and the event was in Brooklyn, so the pizza was out of this world)! It was an awesome night that I'll never forget.

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I'm in pretty close contact with Dashing, Fawful, Guru, Giant Tope, Noname, Marsden, IcedHope, ShodanFreeman, Comrade Pants and a few other people I know were on Telltale, but I can't remember what their usernames were.

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I've talked to Dashing on Steam, albeit it's been a year or two since the last time I did. But I haven't seen Guru, Tope, Noname or Marsden since I don't even know how long.
I've seen more of MusicallyInspired (outside of DFAF, obviously) than anyone else really, since he occasionally visits originaltrilogy.com, and I hang out in Off Topic there.

Steam doesn't really count for me because I don't chat via PM on Steam with anyone very much at all. I do have many people mentioned added, but I never notice (nor look to see) when they're on. I kind of prefer group settings over individual conversations.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Chyron

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I don't know about your TTG games, but none of mine require account authorization anymore and haven't for a while. I'm pretty sure they changed that a while back, which is why I redownloaded some of them then. I've redownloaded them all now.

Not sure about the macOS versions, but, at least with the Windows versions, the reason subsequent games aren't prompting you is because the launcher saves your username/email and your password (hashed) in the registry, which will be used for subsequent game installs/loads. Delete the key "HKCU\Software\Telltale Games\Launcher" and try to load your games again.

Edit: After testing all of the TTG games I bought directly from them (Bone; Back to the Future; Hector, JP; Poker Night; Puzzle Agent 1 and 2; Sam & Max 1, 2, and 3; SBCG4AP; Tales of Monkey Island; Walking Dead 1 and 2; Wallace & Gromit; and The Wolf Among Us), it looks like TTG must've updated their older games to remove the legacy launchers, as everything pre-TWD goes right into the game, where just a couple years ago they all had some kind of launcher that required authentication or an offline license key thing.

Unfortunately, TWD 1, TWD 2, and The Wolf Among Us all demanded TTG Account credentials in order to get past the splash screen. This might have something to do with these games utilizing a DLC-like distribution model for episodes beyond the first, so their CDN doesn't get hammered by non-customers.